Page 10 of Purrfectly Outfoxed

All I do in response is get out of my basket and bury my face into the bowl of food, being sure to make as many pleasurable sounds as I can.‘Mmm. So fucking good.’

‘Just you wait, fox-face. Bea will go to bed soon.And when she does, I’ll be waiting outside your door with a rusty cheese grater for your balls.’

‘And I’ll scream so loud she’ll wake up again.’

‘Of course you’d scream, pussy.’

‘You’re forgetting that I’m currently eating kibble by choice. Call me whatever you want, sweetheart. I have no pride.’

‘You’re the dumbest mammalian carnivore I have ever met.’

‘And you’re the cutest little house cat I’ve ever met.’

I hear a harrumph in my mind and smile to myself as I lick every last morsel from the bowl and knock it over for good measure. Then I curl up on the blankets, tail over nose, pretending I don’t care about the ongoing threat of grated genitals.

The moment I get comfy, I reach out with a final, ‘Good night, Whiskers.’ But this time I get absolutely nothing in return.

That’s unfun. And unsettling. She’s somewhere, seething, probably plotting bloodless murder, and if there’s one thing I know about cats, it’s that they don’t let anything go. Not grudges. Not pride. Not a single piece of chicken. I’ll be sleeping with one eye open.

Chapter 4

Tabitha

The house is silent except for the soft tick of the grandfather clock in the hallway. Midnight. Bea’s been asleep for a few hours now, her gentle snores drifting down from upstairs.

Time to make my move.

I shift in the darkness of my room, bones stretching and reforming until I’m standing on two legs instead of four. The cool air hits my bare skin and I peek out into the hall, making sure I’m alone as I head upstairs to grab my robe from its hiding spot.

I tie the belt tight and do what I do every night—tiptoe into Bea’s room to check on her. She has a habit of forgetting to put her hearing aids on charge, so I always make sure to do that for her.

Her door is slightly ajar, and I ease it open just enough to slip through. The room smells like her—that soft mix of rose hand cream and the lavender sachets she keeps in her dresser drawers. She’s sprawled across her bed, mouth slightly open, one arm flung over her eyes. The hearing aids are on her nightstand.

Not on the charger. Again.

I smile despite myself and move quietly to her bedside. She’s fallen asleep with her book still open—a romance novel with the silhouette of a golden wolf surrounded by roses—so I slide her bookmark into place and close it. Then I pick up her hearing aids and place them in their charging case. The little light turns green, and I allow myself a moment to just... look at her.

She looks peaceful. Happy, even in sleep.

And I almost ruined that tonight by attacking her new ‘rescue.’

Guilt twists in my stomach. Bea opened her home to that fox because that’s who she is—kind, generous, always wanting to help. And my first instinct was to tear him apart.

But on the other hand, it’s not like he was just some regular animal rescue. That fox is a shifter, and a man at that. I was just doing my job by protecting a kind old woman from a grown ass man trying to take advantage of her. And even though I know Bea is a bleeding heart and just loves the idea of having another animal for company, I can’t let this continue. That mangy fox has to go.

I move back downstairs to the living room with renewed purpose, my earlier plan to terrorize him coming back in full force. Maybe I’ll stand over him while he sleeps, let him wake up to a human face inches from his. Or I could bang some pots together—Bea would never hear without her hearing aids in. Or shift right on top of him so he wakes up with a cat on his chest, claws out.

The possibilities are endless, and I’m savoring each one as I pad silently through the living room toward the laundry room.

“What are we being sneaky for?”

I jump, spinning around.

And collide face-first with a wall of muscle.

Warm, solid, very male muscle that smells like wood smoke and something wild I can’t quite place.

My hands shoot out instinctively, pressing against his bare chest to steady myself, and oh my god, those are abs. Actual, real abs.